The EU has reached a political agreement (26 March 2026) on the biggest reform of its customs union since 1968. Most of it lands later this decade, but one change hits low-value imports almost immediately — and it shifts who is responsible at the border.
The €150 exemption ends; a €3 duty arrives
Today, goods valued under €150 enter the EU free of customs duty. The reform abolishes that threshold. As a bridge, a temporary flat customs duty of €3 per item applies to low-value consignments from 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028. The flood of cheap parcels — much of it from Chinese marketplaces — is the reason: the exemption had become a loophole and an unfair-competition complaint from EU sellers.
Platforms become the "deemed importer"
The bigger structural change: online platforms become the official importer. They — not the consumer or the carrier — are responsible for ensuring customs duties and VAT are paid at the point of purchase. That moves liability up the chain and changes who the customs paperwork and the duty bill sit with.
A data hub and an EU customs authority
The reform builds the future Customs Union on a centralised EU Customs Data Hub — traders log supply-chain data once and AI gives authorities a full risk view — overseen by a new EU Customs Authority. The agreed rollout: 2028 for e-commerce consignments, 2031 voluntary for other importers, and mandatory for all goods by 2034. The most trusted traders ("Trust and Check") will eventually release goods into the EU with no active customs intervention.
What it means for you
For now, national customs (the Dutch Douane) stays your point of contact and nothing changes for standard B2B shipments. But low-value e-commerce flows should plan for the end of the €150 exemption and the €3 duty from 1 July 2026, and importers and intermediaries should expect to revisit who carries the customs responsibility as the deemed-importer rules and the data hub phase in. The Netherlands has decided to wait for this EU approach rather than introduce its own national parcel tax. How the EU and Dutch customs systems fit together: Customs IT systems.
Sources: European Commission — EU Customs Reform · Council of the EU — landmark reform agreed.